Poland has renewed its efforts to extradite director Roman Polanski over his 1977 child sex conviction.
Zbigniew Ziobro, justice minister and prosecutor general, is working to appeal a court decision to not force Polanski back to the U.S. to face justice after being "accused of and wanted for ... a rape of a child," according to The Hollywood Reporter. Polanski pleaded guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse" with a 13-year-old girl in California almost 40 years ago, but escaped to Europe before his sentencing.
Ziobro said the judge in Krakow, Dariusz Mazur, “assessed the gathered evidence in a biased and selective way" back in October when he decided against extradition, calling it “obviously unlawful” and said the director wouldn't get humane treatment in California, The New York Times reported.
“If he was just a regular guy, a teacher, doctor, plumber, decorator, then I’m sure he’d have been deported from any country to the U.S. a long time ago,” Ziobro said.
Polanski, 82, who currently lives in France and has an apartment in Krakow, was accused of giving the then 13-year-old Samantha Geimer champagne and part of a Quaalude pill before having sex with her at Jack Nicholson's house during a photo shoot.
Geimer published a memoir in 2013 titled The Girl and described the impact fame can have on an individual.
"I didn't want to have sex, but apparently that is what was going to happen," she wrote, adding: "You know, there's something about fame. There just is. I mean, think about the kids who had sleepovers at Michael Jackson's house and all the accusations that followed. Think about their parents. Were they bad or stupid people? No. They just wanted to believe that being famous made you good."
Last year, Polanski said he had "nothing more to say" about the case.
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